Muhammad al-Dura’s Faked Death

The shooting case has become the mother of all fauxtographies.

Twelve years after the "shooting of Muhammad al-Dura” on the second day of the Intifada in Gaza, the Israeli government has now concluded that IDF fire did not kill Muhammad al-Dura, and there is even no evidence that the 12-year-old Palestinian boy was injured. In the video – shot by a Palestinian cameraman – al-Dura can be seen moving his arm and leg, with no visible bloodstains.

France-2 television broke the story, with reporter Charles Enderlin describing how the Israelis had shot and killed the young al-Dura. The video clip was the lead story on evening newscasts worldwide, with the iconic image of the boy – huddling behind a cement barrel next to his father – splashed across every front page. The media accepted as “fact” that al-Dura was, in the words of 60 Minutes Australia, “targeted, murdered, by Israeli soldiers,” and Time magazine surmised the chilling scenario that “pleas for Israeli soldiers to cease fire [were] answered with a fusillade of bullets.”

Given the strategic timing at the beginning of the Intifada, it was a PR bonanza for Palestinians in their campaign to generate world sympathy – in the words of 60 Minutes, “one of the most disastrous setbacks Israel has suffered in decades.”

To add fuel to the fire, the Palestinian Authority produced a doctored photomontage of an Israeli soldier lining up his scope and shooting al-Dura at close range – an act of “artistic expression” that the PA’s Ministry of Information said was meant to “convey the truth… and nothing but the truth.” (ARD German Television, March 18, 2002)

Overnight, al-Dura became the Palestinian poster child, driving the nascent Intifada violence to dizzying heights. Days later, as Palestinians lynched two Israelis in Ramallah, the bloodthirsty crowd shouted: “Revenge for the blood of Muhammad al-Dura!” The boy was immortalized in epic poems, postage stamps and streets named in his honor. Over 150 schools in Iran alone were renamed after al-Dura.

There was only one problem. Enderlin, the French correspondent who narrated the al-Dura footage as if he was delivering an eyewitness account, was nowhere near the Netzarim junction that day. The veracity of both the film and the narrative was based solely on the word of the Palestinian cameraman, with no outside verification. It was a 100 percent Palestinian production – stamped with a France-2 voiceover.

Media monitors immediately suspected a fraud. Given the angle of the Israeli position – kitty-corner to the junction – the only way that Israeli bullets could have hit al-Dura was by ricochet. The video, however, shows symmetrical bullet-holes penetrating the wall behind him – indicating a straight hit.

It was a 100 percent Palestinian production – stamped with a France-2 voiceover.

So who fired the shots? An obvious way to solve the mystery would be to examine the bullets lodged in the wall: are they Israeli M-16, or Palestinian Kalashnikov? Inexplicably, there were no bullets to be found. In a filmed interview, Abu Rahma, the cameraman, admitted to having removed the bullets from the wall. When questioned about what he discovered – and why a cameraman would be involved in ballistics activities in the first place – Abu Rahma flashed a sinister smile and said: “We have some secrets for ourselves.”

As this information came to light, intelligent people not prone to conspiracy theories were becoming increasingly convinced that al-Dura was actually shot by Palestinians. Israeli M-16 bullets are smaller (5.56 caliber) than the Palestinian Kalashnikov (7.62 caliber); in a later reenactment, M-16 bullets fired from the Israeli position were unable to replicate the bullet holes that hit the cement barrel in the video; they merely pinged off its surface. When France-2 allowed award-winning producer Daniel Leconte and other senior French journalists to view all 27 minutes of the raw footage, Leconte concluded: “The only ones who could [have] hit the child were the Palestinians from their position. If they had been Israeli bullets, they would be very strange bullets because they would have needed to go around the corner.”

Bustling Stage of Alfresco Cinema

And then the levee broke:

Professor Richard Landes of Boston University discovered “outtakes” – hours of additional footage shot that same day at the Netzarim junction. These tapes – produced by more than a dozen Palestinian cameramen working for Reuters, Associated Press and other networks – depict a variety of unmistakably staged battle scenes. One clip shows a group of Palestinian men running with rifles, then shooting through an archway, Rambo-style. One would assume that the Palestinians were in the heat of battle, firing on Israelis. Yet the unedited footage shows that the archway leads to nothing more than a brick wall. No Israelis, no battle. Just a dramatic, contrived production, what Landes calls “a bustling stage of alfresco cinema.” (seconddraft.org)

Incredibly, the following day Enderlin and France-2 broadcast this sequence of men firing into the brick wall as if it were real news footage.

Palestinian “emergency crews” are seen laughing and goofing around.

Other videotape from that day at the junction shows Palestinian actors in multiple roles: Palestinian fighters are carted off to an ambulance, despite showing no signs of injury. Other men fall in apparent agony, then get up, dust themselves off, and re-enter the action. “Emergency evacuation crews” are seen laughing and goofing around – while Palestinian schoolgirls stroll merrily through the scene.

Suspicious of a hoax, Professor Landes tracked down France-2’s Enderlin and together they viewed some of the outtakes. During one obviously faked scene of an ambulance evacuation, Enderlin shrugged it off as a matter of course. The Arabs “do that all the time,” he said. “It’s their cultural style. They exaggerate.”

The hoax was now clear. That day at the junction provided the perfect combination of dramatic factors: a terrified young boy, clinging to his frantic father, apparently shot in cold blood – the ultimate image of “Israeli aggressor and Palestinian victim.” Best of all, since there was no Western presence at the junction that day, staging this scene required only the cooperation of Palestinian camera crews. France-2’s Enderlin – seduced by the lure of a major international scoop – ignored the obvious deficiencies in the credibility of Palestinian cameraman Abu Rahma, who once declared, “I went into journalism to carry on the fight for my people.”

Upon viewing the raw footage, Luc Rosenzweig, former editor-in-chief of France’s daily Le Monde, called this the “almost perfect media crime.”

Distressing Possibilities

As the story unfolded, other journalists conducted their own investigations and found the inconsistencies between fact and fiction too great to discount. Esther Schapira, a German television producer, traveled to Israel convinced of IDF guilt – and came away concluding that the boy had been killed by Palestinians. James Fallows, one of America’s most respected journalists, documented in The Atlantic Monthly how he reached the same conclusion. And Jean-Claude Schlinger, an adviser on ballistic and forensic evidence in French courts for 20 years, recreated the shooting and concluded that al-Dura could not have been shot by Israeli gunfire.

Was France-2 duped? Enderlin, at his meeting with Professor Landes, drew a map of Netzarim junction that placed the Israeli position on the wrong side of the road. Landes says: “This indicated one of two equally distressing possibilities”: Either that Enderlin “understood so little of what had happened that day that he didn’t even know the most basic elements of the layout of the scene.” Or alternatively, he was outright lying – and must have assumed that Landes “was so little informed that he could get away with it.”

For this propaganda work, Abu Rahma was nominated for MSNBC's Picture of the Year.

French journalist Claude Weill Raynal defended Enderlin with the following bit of logic: “[People are] so shocked that fake images were used and edited in Gaza, but this happens all the time everywhere on television, and no TV journalist in the field or film editor would be shocked.” In other words, Palestinian photo fraud is so commonplace, there’s no reason to get excited.

For this exceptional piece of propaganda disguised as camera work, Abu Rahma was nominated by MSNBC for “Picture of the Year,” and received various “Journalist of the Year” honors including the coveted Rory Peck award from the Sony Corporation. He achieved legendary status in Arab circles and went on speaking engagements around the world.

[Meanwhile, the boy’s father, Jamal al-Dura, was engaging in his own bit of media manipulation. He held a press conference where he lifted his shirt to show journalists the scars on his chest as “proof” that Israeli soldiers had fired on him. In truth, these scars were the result of tendon transplant surgery that Jamal had undergone years earlier at an Israeli hospital, after being severely wounded by a Palestinian thug. Dr. David Yehuda, the surgeon who operated on Jamal, recognized the scars: “His wounds are not bullet wounds, but were produced by two things – first, the knife of the Palestinian who cut him, and second, my knife that fixed him. He faked the case.” Jamal had displayed the height of ingratitude: After being saved by an Israeli doctor, he turned that around to foist a libel on the Jews.]

Pallywood

The PR bonanza sparked by Muhammad al-Dura gave birth to Pallywood, a cottage industry dedicated to producing Palestinian propaganda films. When Palestinian officials alleged that Israel was using radioactive uranium and nerve gas against civilians, official PA television broadcast fake “news footage” of “victims” plagued by vomiting and convulsions. Another clip from state-run Palestinian TV used actors to depict Israeli soldiers “raping and murdering” a Palestinian girl in front of her horrified parents.

So this is what Israel is fighting against: Palestinians generate video footage of “Israeli atrocities,” then obscure the evidence to ensure that Palestinian “eyewitnesses” remain as the only source of information. The media then pronounces Israel guilty until proven innocent. By the time Israel can gather the facts, the party is over.

These iconic images create a “record of events” that forms the historical narrative for generations to come. Consider the four reels of footage from the Warsaw Ghetto discovered after World War II, which for decades served as the authentic resource for Holocaust scholars. At least until 1998, when a fifth reel turned up – showing outtakes of the ghetto scenes – proving the “historical record” to be a staged fraud.

Once an image sears into the public consciousness, it is almost impossible to undo. According to Hany Farid, a Dartmouth professor and expert on digital photography, on a neurological level the brain tends to reduce each major historical era into a single emotional image that encapsulates the complex story: raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, the Vietnamese Napalm girl, facing the tank in Tiananmen Square, electrocution wires at Abu Ghraib prison – and Muhammad al-Dura.

In the coming days, another French court is expected to rule once again.

This is more than just a convenient memory device. Like the medieval blood libels that launched pogroms across Europe, the legend of al-Dura has become the battle cry of violent Muslim extremists committing the most heinous crimes. In an al-Qaeda recruitment film, Osama bin Laden invoked the memory of al-Dura as a call to arms. In Ramallah, the mob that disemboweled two Israeli reservists declared it as “revenge for the blood of Muhammad al-Dura.” And in Daniel Pearl’s beheading video, the killers interwove scenes of al-Dura with the gruesome slitting of Pearl’s throat.

Philippe Karsenty, a French media watchdog, accused France-2 of fraud, the discredited Enderlin tried to shift the blame by calling this "a campaign designed to harass foreign correspondents," and – in an amazing show of chutzpah – sued Karsenty for libel. The case wound its way through the French legal system – in 2006 France 2 won its case, in 2008 the judgment was overturned by the Paris Court of Appeal; in 2012, France's high court re-reversed the ruling. And now in the coming days, another French court is expected to rule once again.

This is all on the backdrop of the Israeli government probe concluding that the al-Dura event was rife with fraud. Even Enderlin himself wrote in the French newspaper Le Figaro that his report "may have been hasty," but was justified because "so many children were being killed." In other words, fabricating news coverage is acceptable – when used to support some greater, unproven claim against Israel.

Yet when an urban legend starts it is nearly impossible to erase. Everyone knows that before Columbus sailed to the New World, scientists thought the world was flat. Not true. It was only in 1828 that novelist Washington Irving popularized the flat-earth fable in his best-selling biography of Columbus. Writers of American history then picked up the story, and since textbooks tend to be clones of each other, Irving's little hoax persists to this day.

So too, "the shooting of Muhammad al-Dura" has become a permanent part of the lexicon – a 21st century version of the Flat Earth Society. As Mark Twain said, "A lie told well is immortal."

Tragically, these lies are more than just factual inaccuracies or a PR issue. These myths remain firmly engraved in Palestinian lore, fomenting an atmosphere of mistrust that will linger for decades, and that ultimately undermine the possibility of peaceful coexistence. As one Palestinian woman said on camera regarding another hoax (the Jenin “massacre”): "We'll never forget this massacre. This is similar to the Holocaust. We will teach our generations not to forget this."

Featured at Aish.com:

About the Author

Rabbi Shraga Simmons grew up trekking through snow in Buffalo, New York, enjoying summers as a tour guide at Niagara Falls. He holds a degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin, and rabbinic ordination from the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem. He is the co-founder of Aish.com, and founder of the Torah study site, JewishPathways.com. He is also the co-founder of HonestReporting.com, and author of "David & Goliath", the definitive treatment of media bias against Israel (2012). He lives with his wife and children in the Modi'in region of Israel.

The opinions expressed in the comment section are the personal views of the commenters. Comments are moderated, so please keep it civil.

Visitor Comments: 18

(17)
K Steele,
July 19, 2014 8:05 AM

Social Capitol

If MEMRI serves me, we are witnessing an un-documentation of Saul Alinsky"s 12 Rules in action. Follow the capital back to the source in America, be it Mr. Murdock or Mr. Bloomberg or Ariana Huffington or whoever wears their fortune on their sleeve, vis-a-vis touted fair and balanced journalism. Follow the ideologues around the idiotspere and you will witness their own personal philistisophical coporolight spring to life. Afterwords witness how only the quickist of wits to step into Gepettos shoes as the sole heir os this bountiful PR to skilfully re-articulate the second telling of the story through the wantonly pornographic eyes of the American News Beast.

When you can follow these news crumbs, Hansel and Gretel like, back to the Ginger Bread House of Lies that is Mass Media in America, the you can see the pattern.

(16)
Colette,
June 1, 2013 6:40 PM

Dear AISH, All those facts are sent to convinced, like me...

... How, can you send these articles to those that are not convinced. For example to Globe and Mail, Time, Life, etc. You need to reach the "unconvinced" so that they know the truth and rally themselves to the right cause.

(15)
William,
May 25, 2013 12:05 AM

Pictures, stories and then some...

This photo did couse a stir around the world, even when it turned out that the event was a fake. But, I wonder, if the French media carried any photos of Israeli soldiers being thrown off the roof (in that same conflict) and their bodies dragged with a rope behind a car?? ONE-SIDED? DEFINITELY! But then , what can one expect from Muslim-dominated Europe, these days?

(14)
Beverly Kurtin,
May 23, 2013 3:50 AM

France's Court

Israel was cleared by the French court that saw that the boy was not killed; why is this coming up again? Just to try to give us more bruises?

Let's face it, the entire thing was a set up from the git go. While I dislike to paint any group of people with the same paint brush, the Arabs hate our guts and want to see us OUT of the middle east,

It goes hand-in-hand with BDS, I have my own words for BDS but Aish wouldn't print them.

But let me give us all a word of caution: Unless we start loving each other regardless of whether we're ultra orthodox or reform, we are ALL JEWS. If we attack each other, it is a delight to our enemies.

Love your neighbor is not a suggestion, it is a commandment!

Susan,
May 23, 2013 10:37 AM

Great summery

Why be so tender and nice to our enemy? They want to kill us. No marcy. Not only Israelis but Jews everywhere. Israel have Arab population. Which Arab country have Jewish population with rights to speak or exist? How about equal rights ??the Arabs who are not with Israel and still lives there should be deported. And so why the explanation ? If somebody antisemitic will always found a reason to be. When we will fought against the enemy and not only answer for some attack????

(13)
Andy Anderson,
May 22, 2013 10:11 PM

Stand firm Israel .

The camera lying again ,,

(12)
Bunim,
May 22, 2013 8:51 PM

Moral People must help Israel

All people of moral conscience must help Israel in practical terms to combat the wordwide anti-semitism and faked history of the so called palestinians. Thanks for the article.

(11)
Frances Makarova,
May 22, 2013 1:42 PM

David & Goliath: by Rabbi Shraga Simmons is gripping

I downloaded the Kindle version today of David & Goliath, it is well written and accurate Rabbi Shraga Simmons has written a gripping account of the Deception by some of the major Media which paints Israel as the villain. When the facts are the opposite to that claimed in the press. I recommend this book for everyone. The kindle version has links to the online evidence. I recommend it to everyone.

(10)
Anonymous,
May 22, 2013 11:40 AM

Another fake witness

I remember, at the end of the week the alleged 'event' took place, a weekly Le Nouvelles Observateur has published a report by its correspondent, who claimed "he was hiding under the truck when the shooting had started" - and "saw the scene of assasination with his own eyes". Unfortunately I did not save that issue, but I believe it's not a big problem to find it out.Everybody is talking about France-2 in this connection. I wonder why nobody is suing the respectable French magazin?

(9)
Samuel H.,
May 22, 2013 11:07 AM

Obvious!

" Given the angle of the Israeli position – kitty-corner to the junction – the only way that Israeli bullets could have hit al-Dura was by ricochet. " - but it seems to be obvious even from the first look at the picture: the man is supposed to hide himself behind the cement barrel from his enemy's side (i.e. at his left)! I cannot figure out why this was not obvious to numerous experts and investigators.

(8)
Anonymous,
May 21, 2013 7:35 PM

G-d Bless Israel

After reading this story, I wonder haw many others are like that.The truth always sets free and always wins.Long live Israel

(7)
Lou,
May 21, 2013 7:30 PM

Case still making its way through the French courts

After dong some quick internet research I found that lawsuits concerning this case are still making their way through the French court all these years later. The decision in the latest defamation lawsuit by Enderlin against Karsenty is expected tomorrow, May 22, 2013.

(6)
ATC,
May 21, 2013 7:18 PM

Forgiveness is the alternative

You have given us an excellent exposé of Pallywood and the lasting damage caused by false propaganda. The "Vietnamese Napalm girl" you mentioned is Phan Thị Kim Phúc. She is now a Canadian citizen, advocates forgiveness, works for peace, and raises funds to rehabilitate war victims.

(5)
David S.,
May 21, 2013 6:26 PM

forgotten hero

The person responsible for this fantastic turn of events is Philippe Karsenty, the Deputy Mayor of a French suburban city and founder of a media ratings agency. If it weren't for his courageous efforts for so many years, this wouldn't have been possible. He deserves most of the credit. This also proves that fighting for the truth, especially with regards to Israel, is probably the greatest of all battles. And Mr Karsenty is about to prove it. G.. bless him for that.

(4)
Stanley Tee,
May 21, 2013 5:26 PM

Philip Karsenty

Philip Karsenty has been sued in French courts for libel because he had the temerity to expose Enderlin. He lost one case, but won the second, and I believe is now about to endure a third. He has courageously stood up to the full weight of French law and French media, fighting for the truth, with no support from anyone, least of all Israel. He deserves acknowledgement and thanks from all of us.

(3)
Meir,
May 21, 2013 4:09 PM

Why is the Israeli Government investigating this NOW?

When I made aliyah in 1991 and Rabin was assassinated a couple of years later, a friend of mine said that Israel will spend the next twenty years trying to save his life. I did not understand his comment then. I thought about his comment with regard to the Muhammad al-Dura case. The Israeli government did absolutely nothing then to take its proverbial head out of the noose. What is to be gained by investigating this 12 years later? We will suddenly gain world sympathy ?

(2)
Stuart Schoenberger,
May 21, 2013 3:12 PM

So how do we get the news out?

Previously, I read about how this was a hoax, but this covers the hoax in the making and its perpetuation at the journalistic level. It seems that we need to expand more on exposing the propaganda arms of the PLO, Hamas and Hezbollah. Put more effort in getting newspapers to retract and be less willing to accept unsubstantiated claims.

(1)
Brian M.,
May 21, 2013 2:58 PM

Pallywood & Nazis

We should remember and publicize continually that Nazi Germany also 'staged' the start of WWII between them and Poland--and, thus, the straight line running from Goebbels's Ministry of Propaganda to Pallywood!!

I've been striving to get more into spirituality. But it seems that every time I make some progress, I find myself slipping right back to where I started. I'm getting discouraged and feel like a failure. Can you help?

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Spiritual slumps are a natural part of spiritual growth. There is a cycle that people go through when at times they feel closer to God and at times more distant. In the words of the Kabbalists, it is "two steps forward and one step back." So although you feel you are slipping, know that this is a natural process. The main thing is to look at your overall progress (over months or years) and be able to see how far you've come!

This is actually God's ingenious way of motivating us further. The sages compare this to teaching a baby how to walk. When the parent is holding on, the baby shrieks with delight and is under the illusion that he knows how to walk. Yet suddenly, when the parent lets go, the child panics, wobbles and may even fall.

At such times when we feel spiritually "down," that is often because God is letting go, giving us the great gift of independence. In some ways, these are the times when we can actually grow the most. For if we can move ourselves just a little bit forward, we truly acquire a level of sanctity that is ours forever.

Here is a practical tool to help pull you out of the doldrums. The Sefer HaChinuch speaks about a great principle in spiritual growth: "The external awakens the internal." This means that although we may not experience immediate feelings of closeness to God, eventually, by continuing to conduct ourselves in such a manner, this physical behavior will have an impact on our spiritual selves and will help us succeed. (A similar idea is discussed by psychologists who say: "Smile and you will feel happy.")

That is the power of Torah commandments. Even if we may not feel like giving charity or praying at this particular moment, by having a "mitzvah" obligation to do so, we are in a framework to become inspired. At that point we can infuse that act of charity or prayer with all the meaning and lift it can provide. But if we'd wait until being inspired, we might be waiting a very long time.

May the Almighty bless you with the clarity to see your progress, and may you do so with joy.

In 1940, a boatload 1,600 Jewish immigrants fleeing Hitler's ovens was denied entry into the port of Haifa; the British deported them to the island of Mauritius. At the time, the British had acceded to Arab demands and restricted Jewish immigration into Palestine. The urgent plight of European Jewry generated an "illegal" immigration movement, but the British were vigilant in denying entry. Some ships, such as the Struma, sunk and their hundreds of passengers killed.

If you seize too much, you are left with nothing. If you take less, you may retain it (Rosh Hashanah 4b).

Sometimes our appetites are insatiable; more accurately, we act as though they were insatiable. The Midrash states that a person may never be satisfied. "If he has one hundred, he wants two hundred. If he gets two hundred, he wants four hundred" (Koheles Rabbah 1:34). How often have we seen people whose insatiable desire for material wealth resulted in their losing everything, much like the gambler whose constant urge to win results in total loss.

People's bodies are finite, and their actual needs are limited. The endless pursuit for more wealth than they can use is nothing more than an elusive belief that they can live forever (Psalms 49:10).

The one part of us which is indeed infinite is our neshamah (soul), which, being of Divine origin, can crave and achieve infinity and eternity, and such craving is characteristic of spiritual growth.

How strange that we tend to give the body much more than it can possibly handle, and the neshamah so much less than it needs!